Snapback: Interior Lighting

What’s Changing? Everything

Bill Schwinghammer, Principal, Schwinghammer
Lighting, said it best — “If I say that you can’t do
something now, in two months you will be able to
do it.” Much of this has to do with advances in LED
technology (see sidebar), but it is
not limited to LEDs. In design, we are seeing smaller
fixtures, more organic shapes and sculptural forms,
luminous walls and surfaces, and a return to more
decorative fixtures. The color temperature and
color rendering of LEDs has improved dramatically,
increasing the percentage of LED fixtures on any job,
and even fluorescents continue to improve in terms
of output and maintenance. At the same time, energy
requirements, LEED, light-trespass considerations, and
energy codes are making every design decision more
complex. Stephen Bernstein, Principal, Cline Bettridge
Bernstein Lighting Design, says, “It’s virtually impossible
now to do a project without a lighting designer.” For
more on what’s new, read on. —Allison Craig

Photo by Brett Drury

The new origami indirect fixture from Peerless Lighting is one example of a trend toward more organic fixture shapes — in this case,
inspired by the natural repeating crystalline and molecular patterns found in modern architecture, fashion, and design..

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“Finally, we are seeing some
standardization of LED platforms,
so there can be interchangeability.
Philips Fortimo and Xicato are two
examples of “FLM” modules, which
make changing the LED light engine
much simpler, more feasible, and
more accessible. We are also seeing
energy savings for lighting with the
whole-building approach — that
is, integrated design using energy
modeling tools.”

Nelson JenkinsPrincipal
Lumen Architecture,
PLLCNew York City

“The market is going more and
more toward LED in all applications,
both interior and exterior. Issues
that are coming up are that each
product requires a very specifi c
control element in order to get
full range dimming, and then even
over the course of the dimming it
doesn’t always dim smoothly. You
end up with pulses or bumps in the
dimming curve. This has been an
issue.”

William SchwinghammerPrincipalSchwinghammer Lighting, LLC
New York City

“Trends in commercial lighting
are heavily infl uenced by energy
codes today. They are really forcing
decisions. The only option will be
to use LEDs for better or worse.
Everything else will be obsolete. But
we’re not there yet. The quality
ones are very expensive. There
are good manufacturers and good
products, but very little product
that is great yet.”

LEDs — Changing the Shape and Color of Architecture

Photo by Jimmy Cohrssen

Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design lit this rear-illuminated
2000-foot art wall in GSC Group’s offi ces with rows of LED fi xtures mounted
at the top and bottom of the wall for ease of accessibility and maintenance.

It is becoming more and more apparent that LEDs are game
changers, and not just in terms of giving us more fi xture type/lamp
type options.

Let’s start with form. For years now, fl uorescent fi xtures have
dominated commercial spaces, and we have spent a lot of time
talking about how they are getting smaller and less obtrusive.
Manufacturers like to use the words “almost invisible.” LEDs, of
course, give us the ability to create very small fi xtures, but they
also allow us to take lamps out of the box. Rectangles are no longer
important. Fixtures can take on any shape imaginable, and as more
manufacturers and designers begin to play with shape, those shapes
start to become important architectural elements. They do not
disappear into the design but become a key component. As lighting
designer Claude Engle IV says, “people want more decorative
now; they seem to be graduating out of the postmodern selfconsciousness.”
Organic, sculptural, decorative — we’ve come a
long way from round holes and square boxes.

Luminescent planes are showing up everywhere, not just in
restaurants and bars. The ability to paint a wall with soft glowing
color is too tempting to pass up, even in offi ce buildings, where
building owners seek to comfort and stimulate increasingly
stressed-out workers. Next on the horizon, according to Bill
Schwinghammer, are “fabrics or wall materials that are electrifi ed
and luminescent. There will be materials that are as thin as paper
and illuminated. And color, which has been electric up until now, will
be more normalized.”

Lastly, it is easier to create whiter, cooler light with LEDs, and
with more owners demanding LEDs, the very color of our world may
be changing. Schwinghammer confi rms that “color temperature is
going up. People want spaces with cooler temperatures across the
board, even in residential, but certainly in offi ce spaces and retail.”
Could it be called global cooling? — A.C.

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